humani nil a me alienum puto

Space Porn

Well, the moving thing and some insane workload at work have kept me from posting enough here lately–and may continue to do so until after we actually move.

However that doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped seeing things that fascinate, challenge, or enrage me, and when I get a chance I’m going to keep posting about them here.

So let’s start with a quick one of something that pretty much always fascinates me: space porn.

No, not Barbarella. I mean the images of astounding astronomical things. I have a serious weakness for that stuff–I suspect it’s partly the fact that I’m a sensawunda junkie from the old days, and partly because I saw way too many covers by Vincent Di Fate and people like him during my formative years.

I was pretty blown away by a recent APOD, showing one of the new Hubble images. Check it out:

If that doesn’t give you a little thrill, you’re not doing it right.

And, of course, the WOW factor of the image only gets bigger the more you know about what it means–that it represents the death of a star, that it’s been going on for over 2000 years, and that those pretty wings are actually clouds of superheated gas tearing through space at over 600,000mph, lit from within by the radiation sent out of the dying star’s core.